Empire of Dirt
by Lecherous Fever
Summary: Once upon a time, someone loved you too. / Speculative future fic. Aqua/Lea. Implied T/A and L/I.


**Fair warning:** [Very] minor instances of bad language and violence, and also death. Implied Terra/Aqua & Lea/Isa.

This fic speculates on parts of the future of the Kingdom Hearts series (i.e. post-KH3D). I am in no way saying that is what will or should happen. Although, the KHIII trailer shown at E3 has Sora picking up the Master Keeper... so I have high hopes that Aqua will return. :3

* * *

It had been so long since they fought in Radiant Garden, and Aqua remembered all too well the pain of dealing blows to her friend. The intervening years had only made him stronger. But she could match him with light for every power of darkness he found to use against her, each recoiling and recovering with healing spells before it came down to a competition of brute strength. It takes every last bit of stamina she has, but Aqua finally manages to throw him back with a vicious swipe of her keyblade. He reels, hand flying to the bleeding gouge in his cheek. The scar will be a small price to pay, she thinks.

It's the tiniest crack in the window of opportunity, but it's there. She'd had to be the protector before, had to lock Ven away safely so long ago. None of her fellow wielders are with her now, and it falls to her again to save her friend. She levels Stormfall at what used to be the body of Terra, and tries to force out the intruding heart.

Light shoots from the end of her keyblade, and hits him square in the chest. Xehanort cries out, and the body before her is swathed in a roiling darkness as he is forced out of his host. Aqua has to shield her eyes as the light spreads, blinding, chasing away the darkness.

Finally, the roaring stops, and she can bear to open her eyes again. It's no longer Xehanort standing before her, but Terra, the keyblade in his hand the long one she remembers from the last time they fought on the same side, in this very wasteland. It's definitely him, dark-haired and blue-eyed and surprised to have his limbs obeying him. He sways on his feet, dazed. Aqua runs forward, prepared to steady him, still heaving breaths after the exertion of the fight.

"…Terra?"

His eyes flutter, but they eventually meet hers. Blood from his wound almost covers the whole left side of his face, still flowing from the deep slash. Aqua tries to draw on the last reserves of her magic. All she manages is a careful cure spell; the blood fades in its green glow, but leaves a faint scar in its wake, a sharp line that passes almost from nose to temple. Terra blinks in recognition as the beginnings of a smile light his face.

"Terra," she breathes. She wants to say that she's here, wants to ask if he's okay, tell him he's safe now, but his name is all she can manage, over and over. The tears come unbidden, the combined weight of relief and guilt and happiness crashing down all at once. Terra looks as if he's about to reply, when his eyes quickly dart upwards.

"What's wrong?" Aqua whispers, voice hoarse. Terra meets her eyes once again, smiling. His hands relax and he drops his keyblade to the ground.

"Terra?!"

His eyes close, and he falls forward. Aqua quickly sends away her keyblade to catch him in her arms. She finds her knees will no longer hold her up, and she sinks under his solid weight.

_No, no… please... _She shakes his shoulders and repeats his name, but the serene smile left on his face is all the answer she gets. She yells at him to wake up, pounds at him with her fists, does everything that she can think of, until a flash of light from his chest stops her in her tracks. Terra's heart emerges, bright and fast-ascending.

"_NO!"_

Aqua reaches out desperately for it, but it's far beyond her reach and only getting further.

"NO! GIVE HIM BACK! _TERRA_!"

She cries out until the heart disappears from sight. The only sound that meets her ragged cries is the wind, whistling through the legions of centuries-abandoned keyblades. She stays frozen where she is, lost and alone, his body dead underneath her hands.

Every bit of hope she'd held on to through her decade in the realm of darkness felt shattered before her. Terra was gone. She had failed.

* * *

The depleting light of dusk left the Keyblade Graveyard drenched in blood-red hues. He's beginning to think hopelessly that he's the only one who's made it here, when he sees her, sitting with her back to him near a large rock to shelter from the sandy winds.

"Aqua!" He calls, quickening his pace. Something isn't right. Scrapes and welts and bruises litter her back and shoulders, ugly and left untreated. She's hunched over her knees, and doesn't answer him. He calls her name again, slowing in his tracks as he sees something beyond her. A body – was that… Xehanort? No, he thinks as he gets closer. He seems different somehow.

_Oh god. Her friend._

Aqua finally turns around when she hears the sound of his boots crunching through the dirt. She looks up at him, face raw from crying.

"Lea," she says weakly. He moves to kneel beside her, fumbling through his pack for a Hi-Potion. He holds it out to her, and she takes it with a shaking hand, but makes no move to uncap it.

"Are you okay?" The question is stupid, he knows, and it comes out of his mouth unbidden before he thinks about it. Of course she's not okay. But she mercifully spares him from saying so. She nods almost imperceptibly, and finally takes a sip of the potion at his insistence.

"Where are the others?"

Lea frowns. "I'm not sure. But listen, Aqua, I'm sure they're fine." He isn't sure if the words make it through. Her gaze, for the most part remains fixed on Terra's body a few scant feet away.

"The last person I saw was Riku, about a day and a half ago. He and Sora were fine, and I hear Ventus has been keeping close to Mickey."

"Good," she sighs, and some of the tension visibly drains from her shoulders. She takes another sip of the foul-tasting potion, and the faintest of her injuries begin to fade from her skin.

"Xigbar and Ansem are dead," he says grimly. "Saïx, too."

Aqua turns to him, and there's more than mere sympathy on her face. "I'm so sorry, Lea. You were... good friends, weren't you?"

"I was good friends with Isa," he corrects her. His voice is low, and he averts his eyes. "That… that wasn't him. Isa left the building a long time ago."

She lays a hand on top of his. There are no words she could give, she knows that. Aqua can't help the grief she feels, but she thinks it's a mistake to be shutting him out, especially when Lea is the one person who might understand it.

He moves his hand to gently grip her own, and it feels like a promise. _I'm here. We'll be okay_.

"Our fight isn't over yet," he says softly.

"I know," she returns quietly. There is much they still must do, but she doesn't have the strength to face it, any of it.

"We need to find the others. Then we'll kill that bastard."

Lea shifts, resting an arm around her shoulder. That one _was_ a promise.

Aqua finds herself leaning against him, head resting on his shoulder. He feels to her like a pillar of strength, her silent tears soaking into the fabric of his clothes. But he leans on her every bit as much for the bravery she brings him. Both of them had to do awful things today, to the people they'd loved most in the world – and it's not that he'd wish it on anyone, but it's a comforting thought that he's not alone, that he and Aqua can hold each other up and get through it. Lea idly strokes at her blue hair. _So much like Isa's. _

She shifts her head to look up at him. Aqua wants to thank him, for understanding unbelievable loss, for the safety his embrace affords, for just being beside her. She wishes she'd had the time to know him better before they all had to go their separate ways to protect the Princesses of Heart and begin destroying Xehanort's vessels.

_Vessels_. It still makes her blood boil to think that a mere vessel is the only way Xehanort has ever thought of Terra. He's always been better than that, and Aqua has always known it.

"I'm glad you're here, Lea."

"So am I."

Lea reaches a hand to her face – tentatively, hesitantly, as if waiting for her to stop him. When she doesn't, he brushes the few stray tears from her cheek. She can see her own pain reflected in his eyes, sharp green and unlike any others she's ever seen, and then she's sure of it.

_Once upon a time, someone loved you too_.

Lea had hunted and waited like she had, spent the search aching for the person closest to his heart. However hard he tried to hide it, she knew that he'd kept hold of that hope just as she had – and just like her, his hopes had been dashed to pieces in front of him. And they had done it themselves.

Her lips meet his, and she's not sure if she moved to him or he to her, but it doesn't matter. Lea is alive and safe in her arms, and she knows they both need this, feels the light touch of wet eyelashes on her face as his lips shift with hers. Eyes shut, she can nearly forget everything – where they are, what they have done, what they yet must do.

For what feels like an immeasurable stretch of time, they stay wrapped in the solace of each other, saying nothing but no longer feeling the immense weight of a loneliness that had felt more than capable of crushing them entirely. It startles Aqua just how reassuring it is to feel like there's someone who cares about her, even when he knows what she's done.

"Did we do the right thing?" she asks.

"Of course we did," he tells her. "With each vessel we defeat, we get one step closer to destroying him."

Somewhere in his mind, Lea knows that they should be proud of themselves – the most powerful, most dangerous of Xehanort's vessels have been obliterated, thanks to them. Terra's possessed body, the one that had started Xehanort's scheme as Ansem's apprentice, given rise to two of his worst and had perhaps caused them all the most misery, was gone now, thanks to Aqua. Not that it was any real consolation to her now.

"I should bury him." Aqua's quiet utterance is almost lost in the roaring wind, but Lea catches it. He watches her watching the unmoving corpse of her friend.

"No. Don't do that."

She tears her eyes away from Terra, meets Lea's intent green gaze.

"Why not? It's the least I can do for him."

"Don't bury him."

Aqua sighs shakily. "I… I _killed_ him, Lea. I owe him this much." She gets to her feet and he stops her, a long-fingered hand circling her wrist and holding her back.

"Please," he says, "don't. Terra needs a body to come back to."

She froze.

"Listen to me, Aqua. Where do all hearts go?"

The memory of Terra's disappearing heart is too raw, too close. She knows it was returning to Kingdom Hearts, joining the assembly of captive hearts deep in the realm of darkness.

"Kingdom Hearts is lost to the darkness." She states it like the bitter fact it is.

"I know, but what if we can free it?"

Aqua lightly shrugs out of his grip and sits back down beside him.

"What if we can? It can't- it won't bring back the people who are gone."

"We don't know that for sure. Yen Sid seems to think the hearts of the lost worlds will be restored... maybe the hearts of lost people will be, too."

"Lea…" she starts, but isn't sure how to finish. She can see in his face that he believes in every word he says, but she doesn't _want_ to hope, doesn't want to feel that last desperate thread pulled away from her. _ Never again._

"After we defeat that _bastard_, we'll free it. We could do it, Aqua. We could bring them back – Terra, Roxas… Isa. Everyone."

His eyes bore into her, wide and hopeful. Lea has a capacity for hope that utterly eludes her.

In the end, they do not bury Terra. They carry him away from the graveyard of weapons and try to find a secluded place for him to rest within the desolate world. Between the two of them, wielders with the distinction of Master, she thinks they've created wards elaborate enough to at least keep him hidden. Aqua takes Terra's keyblade in both hands, and slams it into the earth with as much force as she can manage. Lea helps her carry his body, propping him up against it. Terra slumps, eyes closed, and still wearing his peaceful smile. He looked as if he could be sleeping, just as Ventus had, so many years ago.

"Thank you."

Lea only nods. His hands feel warm against her shoulders.

Aqua doesn't know if she believes him, doesn't dare to let herself hope that she'll be anything other than dead when it comes to the end of their long battle. But for everything Xehanort has taken from her, she thinks she can find it in herself to end him. She isn't sure that they can liberate Kingdom Hearts, and even if they do, it's unlikely to make things right again. But once again, she mercifully doesn't say it to him.

Tonight, they will lie in each other's arms, spending a last night as Aqua and Lea before the dawn arrives. In the morning, Master Aqua will pull herself up after the devastation, as she always has. And they will take up their Keyblades for the last time, and destroy Xehanort together.


End file.
